Pros and Cons
by Dark Ride
Summary: Chloe goes after what she wants, Rush is not so easily convinced and Eli is an unwilling spectator to the whole thing. Chloe/Rush


I'm a bit of a newcomer, having watched SGU over the Christmas holiday and I couldn't resist writing some Crush (I totally dig the name :D). This is the first fic I finished but I have four others (three of them smutty) in works. If you could drop me a line or two on how I did, especially the characterization, it would be much appreciated. Otherwise enjoy.

**Disclaimer:** Stargate Universe doesn't belong to me.

* * *

Eli was running a series of FTL jumps simulations - the ship wasn't in the best shape after making the intergalactic drift a couple of weeks ago - and so he ignored Chloe's arrival to the bridge at first. It was a quiet shift, close to midnight and she was obviously there to talk to Rush, handing him a flash drive and pointing out something on the screen once it loaded. That was when things got weird.

"Is this your idea of a joke?" Rush was looking at the computer screen in front of him with a perplexed frown. Chloe shook her head.

"Just read it, will you?"

"I guess I'm supposed to be flattered but it has already carried on long enough."

"What is it?" Eli piped up from his console.

"Nothing," Rush said at the same time as Chloe did say "A list." Eli looked between the two of them. Chloe stood rigid, her hands folded behind her back, looking like a student awaiting a verdict on their paper from the strictest professor in the school. Rush, on the other hand, still looked more surprised than anything and the novelty of that look on his face was making Eli curious as to the contents of the flash drive Chloe had given Rush a couple of minutes ago.

"A list of what?" Eli asked. Rush tapped the touchpad and closed whatever it was.

"Nothing important," he replied.

"You didn't even read it through," Chloe protested as he disconnected her flash drive and handed it back to her. She sticked it right back into the port at the side of the laptop.

"It's no longer funny, Miss Armstrong," Rush bit out and Chloe huffed, crossing her arms. Eli was fascinated by how quickly the two of them dismissed his presence.

"It's not meant to be funny," she said. "I spent the last week working on it and if I say so myself, it's damn good. It's well argued and touches on all the important issues you raised, as well as some minor ones. If you'd just read it, you could see-"

"See what?" he cut her off, rubbing at the bridge of his nose. "That you have apparently lost your mind?"

"What are you guys talking about?" Eli walked over to try and peer at the screen which led to Rush slamming the lid shut before he could even glimpse the contents.

"Don't you have some simulations to run?" the older man inquired threateningly and Eli grinned.

"All done, all I need is for Chloe to look over the results if there are any discrepancies."

"In a minute, Eli," Chloe assured him as she opened Rush's laptop again. "As soon as Nicholas here reads my paper."

"Nicholas?" Eli mouthed but before he could question it, Rush grabbed the laptop and moved so the screen was visible only to him.

"Fine, I'll read the bloody thing if only so we all ken get back to the important matters."

"Thank you," Chloe said sweetly. "Now, where are the results of that simulation?"

Eli led her to the console he had previously occupied and watched as she called out the numbers she needed, scrolling through them far more quickly than he would have.

"What was all that about?" he whispered, glancing at Rush who was frowning at the screen and seemingly not paying any attention to them.

"I wrote a kind of paper," Chloe replied distractedly, pausing her perusal of numbers to highlight one section before scrolling again.

"Yes, but why?"

"Because talking to him wasn't working so I decided to take an academic approach," she explained with a roll of her eyes. "I did go to Harvard. You guys might not think political sciences to be a real kind of science but the basics are all the same. It's only the subject matter that is different."

Eli sighed. Chloe had been getting more and more long-winded as of late, most likely due to the fact that she had been all but accepted as an honorary member of the science team. And he had walked in more than once on to what appeared to be a friendly argument between her and Rush and Eli knew from his own experience that one needed to be very persuasive when arguing with the resident mad scientist.

"Fine, fine. So what is the subject matter, then?"

Chloe kept her eyes on the screen.

"A feasibility of a romantic relationship between Dr. Rush and myself."

There was no way in hell Chloe had just said that.

"A what?" Eli squeaked and that was just downright embarrassing but c'mon, his best friend just said she had written a paper about hooking up with Rush. Even if this was some weird rebound thing after she and Matt had finally fallen through a while back, she had far better options than Rush. Like anyone.

"Yeah, I know," she laughed, a bit self-consciously. "I tried just talking to him about it but it was all: It's a bad idea, the age difference is too great, it would impact the relations on the ship negatively, you're just doing it to get back at Lieutenant Scott... Well, I took all of what he said and wrote a paper. It's just the basic pros and cons one, but I hope it will get my point across."

"Wait, wait, wait. You want to be with him but he doesn't want to be with you?" Eli's voice climbed with incredulity. "Is he crazy or what?"

Rush raised his head to glare at him.

"I ken still hear you, Eli. And keep it down. It's bad enough Chloe felt the need to enlighten you. No need to involve anyone else."

"But..." Eli had honestly no idea what to say. It was like some crazy dream. "Ouch!" he yelped when he pinched himself harder than he meant to and Chloe and Rush both stared at him. "Sorry. It's just too much to take in."

"No, it's not," Chloe stated. "It's just a result of a natural human interaction and development."

"But he's not human, he's Rush!" Eli tried to point out. "No offense," he added quickly. Rush shrugged but Eli was far from assured. If anything, the lack of immediate reaction was more terrifying. Which Rush most likely knew and did it for exactly that reason. Manipulative bastard.

"The amplitude in the power fluctuations for the eighth drive is too high," Chloe tapped the highlighted section of numbers, easily switching to working mode while Eli still reeled from the revelations. "We need to bring it down, or it might cause the drive to overload and break down."

"An additional capacitor attached to the drive to better regulate the power flow should be enough," Rush spoke as he walked over to the two of them, looking at the numbers, too.

"Right, I'll leave a note for Brody to get to it," she spoke before looking up at him. "Well?"

"Well what?"

"What do you think?" she asked eagerly, a little too eagerly, Eli thought.

"I won't deny it was well-argued, but your view of the matter is a bit on the idealistic side," Rush handed her the drive back. "Your presumption that your friends would accept it without a complaint, for one, is at best optimistic and at worst downright foolish."

"Let's test it, shall we?" she challenged and turned to Eli. "Eli, would you still be my friend if I was in a relationship with Nicholas?"

Put on a spot like that, Eli wasn't sure what to say at first. Chloe would want him to say yes, he knew. Hell if he knew what Rush wanted, though. He seemed to be against the idea but Eli had a feeling it could only be the denial talking. Or maybe the fact that he wasn't the one to come up with it. Eli had known him well enough by now to know it was a likely possibility. Still, Chloe asked him what his opinion was and so he gave it.

"It would be weird but I would get used to it, I think. As long as you guys weren't all weird about it."

"See?" Chloe asked triumphantly and Rush snorted, going back to the control chair.

"Eli is one person only. You cannae base your assumptions on such a small sample."

Chloe typed up something quickly before she stood up and sauntered - Eli wasn't sure where he had picked up the word but it was the only one to properly describe Chloe's movements - to Rush, leaning over the armrest.

"No, I can't. But do you know what I noticed in all of this?"

"Do tell."

"I noticed," she spoke in a low voice. "That for all of your objections and reasons why it would be a bad idea, you didn't say even once that you don't want it."

She looked at him and he looked back at her and Eli was watching it all open-mouthed and quite apparently forgotten by both of them until Chloe smiled and straightened up.

"Just think about it, will you?" she asked and then quickly dipped her head to kiss Rush on a cheek, surprising both him and Eli. "Good night."

And then she left as quickly as she had arrived, leaving both Eli and Rush to stare after her. It was Eli who found something to say first.

"I said I wouldn't mind as long as you guys weren't weird about it but that thing just now? Totally weird. Please, don't do that again."

"Just shut up and check the shields status, Eli," Rush told him tiredly. Eli turned away but not before catching the contemplative look on Rush's face. Well, if Chloe got through to him, there was only one thing left to do.

Set up all of the kinos to catch the surely-to-be-epic reactions of the rest of the crew to this development.


End file.
